Cognitive Control or Religion

To make it well enough through live, you gotta have some cognitive control and/or religion.

Refrain from marrying someone who only has next to nothing of this sort, especially if you are a woman.

Cognitive Control

Cognitive control is the process by which goals or plans influence behavior. Also called executive control, this process can inhibit automatic responses and influence working memory. Cognitive control supports flexible, adaptive responses and complex goal-directed thought.

Why does it matter?

Religion is a good compensatory tool to cognitive control, that is when cognitive control is lacking a bit here and there and plays a subordinate role to instincts at best. Cognitive control and religion do well working hand-in-hand to keep people steady throughout their span of live.

Why is that? Without cognitive control, or with only little of it, people are subject to their inner drives or instincts, their desires, their moods and emotions – feeble and all. The mind can be a very frail thing, not everybody is sort of head-strong. Spock, a half-Vulcan, was a good example of a character with extreme cognitive control, and as such a rarity by all means.

I am no half-Vulcan. I find that my cognitive control seems to be just a means to an end. The end being that when I behave and act based on drives, instincts, wants, desires and all, cognitive control only gets me to where instincts, wants or desires drive me to. For most of us, and most of the time, cognitive control is just that subordinate tool. Cognitive control does not master my instincts. Overall, my life is not primarily organized by cognitive control.

Well, that is perhaps not all that bad. However, if one finds him or herself mostly to be subjected by one’s own unsavory instincts, wants or desires, and possesses little cognitive control to balance out or override these, then a regimen adopted by adherence to a religion can help to stand a person up.

In any case, when evaluation self or another person for that lasting relationship, it is good to be aware of the frailty of the mind, male or female or anything in between.

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